A study published yesterday (on August 18th) in Cell Reports provides more further evidence against concept of “healthy obesity”.
To surprise, mRNA sequencing of white fat tissue samples showed a clear distinction between individuals who have never been obese and both groups of obese individuals.
The research points out that white fat tissue samples from obese individuals categorized as either metabolically healthy or unhealthy, actually show almost identical, abnormal changes in gene expression in response to stimulation by insulin. These abnormal gene expression patterns were not influenced by cardiovascular or metabolic risk factors such as heart rate, blood pressure, or waist-to-hip ratio. The results show that obesity, rather than other frequent risk factors is likely to be the main factor, which determines metabolic health.
The notion of "healthy obesity" has become popular over the past 15 years, but recently scientists started to question its existence.
Sources:
"The Adipose Transcriptional Response to Insulin Is Determined by Obesity, Not Insulin Sensitivity"
http://www.cell.com/cell-reports/pdf/S2211-1247(16)31014-2.pdf
"Metabolically healthy obesity"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metabolically_healthy_obesity
-logic